


(kiss me) until i'm sick of it

by flintandtinder



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Post The Queen of Nowhere, pArty setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26791975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flintandtinder/pseuds/flintandtinder
Summary: “You’d let them see you on your knees,” I murmur, without bothering to control myself. “For me?” The questions hang there. For me? For a mortal girl?He draws a sharp breath, and twists the doorknob. “For my queen? For you? Absolutely.”
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 11
Kudos: 173
Collections: favorite on TFOTA





	(kiss me) until i'm sick of it

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day two of folktober! The prompt was "Kiss me until I'm sick of it." Thank you to vino and clockworkgraystairs for reading this over the second I finished it. I'm so grateful for nice people in this fandom.

Laughter bounces off the walls of the party. Voices rise and in them, there are arguments—you can’t have a party in faerie without them—dramatic declarations of _something_ , and there is joy.

  
  


A few months ago, joy wasn’t something I could even imagine. I remember weaving these walls without Cardan, and wishing I could see him sit in the throne so lazily one more time. But he’s there, leg tossed over the side of the intricately made throne and there’s the crown, tilted on his head and the picture it creates cuts right through me.

  
  


He nods his head, beckoning me to the seat to his right, and my only source of amusement of the night so far is the way his gaze sharpens when I turn away.

  
  


Riling Cardan up is more of a hobby now. Now that we aren’t fending off attacks to take the throne, at least for now, we have time. The thought brings me to the fact that he has an infinite amount of time, and I have such a short amount in comparison. I doubt it will ever _not_ bother me.

  
  


In hindsight, drinking anything is a terrible idea, but I am stitched together with ideas that first lead to places that are horrible, and later to places that cause insurmountable happiness.

  
  


However, I don’t think faerie wine will be one of those ideas.

  
  


It’s a nice thought, in part, as I weave my way across the room. Faeries part, even if they don’t like the sight of me, or the crown on my head.

  
  


* * *

  
  


My husband finally decides to come to me rather than waiting for me to come to him. It must irritate him since when he interrupts another drink, Cardan sweeps me into the crowd. It’s a stunning sight, if only for the dress he’s sent to me, and the jewels he’s draped me in, but his fingers dig into my sides and the smile he reserves for me is nowhere to be found.

  
  


I dance with him, content in the silence as my head begins to swim from the alcohol, and that moment shatters when his fingers loosen.

  
  


“Don’t,” I breathe.

  
  


The only mark of his surprise is when he blinks. “Pardon?”

  
  


My hands drop from his shoulders and land on his. I curve his fingers against me myself, tightening his grip and murmur where no one can hear. “I like it.”

  
  


Dipping his head down, his hair falls forward and brushes my temple when a hot breath hits the shell of my ear. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

  
  


Both of us know that I don’t need to answer that.

  
  


“You enjoy it so much I thought I should give it a try myself.” To my ears, my speech is slurred.

  
  


Cardan steers me away from the bulk of the party, and because of who he is, no one follows. Or perhaps it’s because they know who I am, what _I_ am capable of.

  
  


“Would you like to tell me what’s wrong, or shall I force it out of you?” The word _force_ feels like a caress running down my spine, and I wonder if it’s intentional—if Cardan has any idea what he truly does to me.

  
  


He has to.

  
  


He’s the one who knows me better than anyone else. Inside and out, to the bleakest parts of my soul and to the brightest.

  
  


No one can hear us as we sway, and his nails press against me through the gown. “It’s...” My voice fails me, but he watches me, infinitely patient and so I try again. “Everything is too nice. Too neat.”

  
  


His brow furrows. “And you don’t like that?”

  
  


It’s not that. I love that it’s calm, that I’m not being hunted, and that I can leave Cardan without fearing I’ll find him dead when I return. Although, that fear has never left me, and perhaps it never will.

  
  


“I’m not neat.” It’s the wrong word to describe it. The truth is that I’m falling apart and I’m not sure if this is how it’s going to be in the aftermath, or if this is how I’ll always be. If for the rest of my life, I’ll jump at the sound of a sword unsheathing, or the way the earth shifts under my feet.

  
  


“Jude,” my name is a prayer on his lips, fervent as he lifts my chin.

  
  


“I find it hard to believe that everyone here has forgotten what’s happened.” But in faerie, things are different. They don’t forget, and I know that better than anyone, but my perspective is purely the mortal kind. I doubt anyone, not even Cardan, can understand that.

  
  


He says what I expect. “No one has forgotten, but you’re right.” Cardan’s lips brush against the top of my hair, and the warmth of him seeps into me. “No one sees it quite like you. No one here can _feel_ it, quite like you.” The music around us swells, and I’m pressed to him, his lips grazing my brow when he leans down. “What can I do? What is it that will make you happy?”

  
  


It’s selfish to want to forget, isn’t it?

  
  


But I don’t want to think of grand parties, or the political affairs that will come to us in the morning. I don’t want to think of training the spies recruited for the Court of Shadows. I certainly don’t want to consider the angry stares sent my way for the crown my husband has placed on my head.

  
  


My throat is dry, and my thoughts are lost as they crash together as the crescendo of the music behind me is blotted out. I really, _really_ don’t know what makes me say it. “Kiss me,” I rasp, and clutch his forearms. “Just kiss me until I’m sick of it.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The fact that we’ve left the party is not lost on me, but our surroundings pass me by with no consequence, and I don’t care to look at portraits of the Greenbrier line while Cardan all but carries me toward our rooms. Guards follow us, and he hisses under his breath when my dress is mistakenly pulled down by his wandering hands.

  
  


I don’t make a move to conceal myself. It could be the alcohol that’s caused the buzz between my ears, but I don’t think it is.

  
  


Nimble fingers press against the middle of my back before Cardan presses me to the wall, and covers my body with his. The fabric of my dress is slipping, no matter how much either of us tries to pull it back into place. “The door is right there.”

  
  


Cardan lifts me, his hands on my waist, and his lips slide down the path of my throat. His tongue darts out as he kisses me there, and he presses my legs apart with his knee despite the layers of tulle between us. “I would worship you here,” he groans.

  
  


I’m no stranger to the way Cardan talks to me, or the filthy words that fall from his mouth, or the way he tells me exactly what he’s doing—and will do. Actually, it would be more fair to explain that both of us do exactly that.

  
  


In Faerie, words have power, and I have always craved it.

  
  


“I don’t care who sees—” and I know he doesn’t.

  
  


“You’d let them see you on your knees,” I murmur, without bothering to control myself. “For me?” The questions hang there. _For me? For a mortal girl?_

  
  


He draws a sharp breath, and twists the doorknob. “For my queen? For you? Absolutely.”

  
  


It’s with that, that we tumble inside. I tear at his clothes, and buttons fly in all directions. He laughs low under his breath, but he’s so much worse. Cardan rips my dress, and by the delighted look on his face, it’s perfectly clear that it was done on purpose. As much as he loves to wrap me in expensive fabrics, he enjoys stripping me bare all the more.

  
  


I’m left in delicate sandals with straps that circle my ankles, and Cardan walks me backward until the backs of my knees meet the edge of the bed. I sit, palms grasping at the duvet and the feeling of silk sheets that slide against my calloused palms.

  
  


He kneels before me, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would do this before anyone else. Cardan slowly unfastens my sandals, and he presses kisses along my ankle, and my calf. Then his mouth is on my thighs as he parts them, his tongue a feverish sensation against me. My name falls away from him again, the only prayer I’ve ever heard him recite.

  
  


In moans. In groans. In screams in the middle of the night where anyone can hear—in the middle of the day, where we’ll wake anyone near us.

  
  


“I love you,” Cardan sighs, turning his cheek against me. Before I am given the chance to reply in kind, his tongue is hot against my slit.

  
  


I hadn’t noticed him drag my underwear off of me, and I think that perhaps he’s ripped them as well.

  
  


My fingers sink into his hair, curling until my nails scratch his scalp and my body arches against him. The bed dips below me as I lean backward, my lips parted as pleasure rips through me.

  
  


He threads his fingers through mine, through the spaces of my free hand as I pull him nearer to me with every swipe of his tongue. He circles my clit, and then his tongue dips lower, sliding against me and into me until I drag his mouth to mine. “ _Please,”_ I growl, and kiss him as roughly as I ever have. “ _This,”_ I say, breathless and keening against him before I bite his lower lip more roughly than I should. “This is what I need.”

  
  


Cardan tells me he’ll give me anything, and his hand drifts higher. He means to join me on the bed, to rest in the cradle of my thighs, and part of me wants to feel him pin my wrists above my head in a hold that both of us know I can get out of. To feel his teeth graze my skin as he sinks into me and drives my cries louder and louder.

  
  


However, we have all night.

  
  


I slide off of the bed and into his lap. My hands frame his face, and I stroke the defined lines that are his cheekbones. There are so many things that I’ve told Cardan, and yet I discover more things to tell him every day.

  
  


The carpet is soft against my knees as I push myself down. There will be bruises where he’s gripped by the time night vanishes, and comes again. Hidden beneath my clothes, and from everyone around me, but I’ll be able to feel where his fingers laid, where they traced my body.

  
  


His nose bumps mine as I move against him, and I grin when he does.

  
  


To say that High King Cardan knows me unlike any other, in ways that no one could ever imagine to know me, is the truth. It’s also true to say that I am irrevocably made for him, and him for I. And so, that’s exactly what I tell him.

  
  


He traces the path of my spine. Cardan’s smile is a rare sight—the genuine one at least—and I roll my hips against him. My breasts are pressed to his bare chest, his hands rising until he slowly strokes across my nipples with his thumbs. “You’re drunk, Jude.”

  
  


“Still true,” I shift my body in a way I’ve learned from him and let my head tip backward as Cardan lifts his hips suddenly, and slams into me. “I may have doubted it once—”

  
  


He crushes my lips to his, and grips my hair as he thrusts into me. “If you were made for me, I must have been made for you.” Cardan’s thumb circles my clit and his mouth is slow across my collarbone. He turns us then, and I whine at the loss of his fingers as my back meets the carpet.

  
  


Cardan’s grin is wicked as he lifts my legs and rests them over his shoulders. He presses chaste kisses against my calves while the way he moves against me is anything but. “I want to watch you break apart.”

  
  


It’s a heady feeling to see him watching me as my back arches, and I moan his name so loudly. When I’m only seconds away from falling apart—just like he wants—Cardan pulls me up. His arms lock around me while my legs are still positioned over his shoulders, his cock still sliding into me, and he holds me up as he slams into me.

  
  


Over and over and—

  
  


Until the friction between us where we’re joined causes me to scream. Usually, he’s arrogant enough to want everyone to know just who’s caused that sound, and I’m content to allow it.

  
  


He kisses me. It’s all teeth, and biting while I drag my nails down his back. I know that the crown on my head is skewed sideways, and his hair has never looked messier than it does now. And the cries that escape me as I come down from what we’ve done—he takes them for himself.

  
  


Cardan’s mouth softens against mine, and when I open my eyes, his are closed. Fingers drift down my spine in a lazy way, and there are whispers in my ear of love as my body shakes. “I’ll take care of you.”

  
  


What I want to say is that I don’t need anyone to take care of me, but I don’t. Because I’m so tired, and he knows that I will be lying if I say it. I want him to take care of me.

  
  


I just don’t want to have to admit it.

  
  


“Your hair is tangled in your crown.” Cardan bites out a laugh. “Stay still, let me— _Jude.”_ Several minutes later, after I’ve successfully remained still for long enough that Cardan can unwind the strands of my hair from the crown, he sets it inside a cushion kept in the wardrobe. “Are you sick of it yet?”

  
  


The pit of my stomach is still deliciously warm from the liquor and from this moment we’ve just shared. “I’ll never be sick of it.”

  
  


Cardan lays me on the bed, and I watch as he ties my wrists together with ribbon taken from my gown. “Oh, I’m rather counting on that.”

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
